Affine Approximation in Finite Nagata Dimension and Applications to Lipschitz-free spaces

Abstract: We show that if $M$ is a metric space of Nagata dimension at most $d$, then there exists an atlas on $M$ modeled on $\mathbb R^d$ such that every Lipschitz map $f:M\to Y$ (with values in an arbitrary Banach space $Y$) can be uniformly approximated by maps that are affine, and thus $\mathcal{C}^1$-smooth, with respect to this atlas. The construction relies on random metric partitions and stochastic retractions inside Lipschitz-free spaces. As an application, we introduce approximate continuous upper gradient $X$-structures (ACUG $X$-structures) on metric spaces and prove that every space of finite Nagata dimension carries an ACUG structure modeled on a superreflexive Banach space. Finally, adapting a proof due to Bourgain, we show that if $M$ has an ACUG superreflexive-structure, then the Lipschitz-free space $\mathcal{F}(M)$ has Pelczyński's property (V*). In particular, at least in the compact case, our result recovers all previously known examples of metric spaces $M$ for which $\mathcal{F}(M)$ has property (V*).